Saturday, December 09, 2017
Michael Gove and the art of spin
There is no point shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted but it is an activity that Michael Gove appears to be fairly fond of if this Guardian article is anything to go by.
The paper reports Gove's statement that voters will be able to force changes to an EU withdrawal deal at the next election if they do not like it:
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Gove said: “The British people will be in control. If the British people dislike the agreement that we have negotiated with the EU, the agreement will allow a future government to diverge.”
He said that after a transition period, the UK would have “full freedom to diverge from EU law on the single market and customs union”.
The next General Election is due in 2022, that is three years after the 29th March 2019 invocation of Article 50 and one year after the end of the two year transition period. By 2022 everything will be done and dusted and there will be no going back.
Of course there was a General Election this year that effectively rejected Theresa May's hard Brexit. If Gove is serious about giving people a meaningful say on the final deal then he will be advocating a referendum that allows us the choice of accepting what is negotiated or exiting from Brexit altogether.
The paper reports Gove's statement that voters will be able to force changes to an EU withdrawal deal at the next election if they do not like it:
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Gove said: “The British people will be in control. If the British people dislike the agreement that we have negotiated with the EU, the agreement will allow a future government to diverge.”
He said that after a transition period, the UK would have “full freedom to diverge from EU law on the single market and customs union”.
The next General Election is due in 2022, that is three years after the 29th March 2019 invocation of Article 50 and one year after the end of the two year transition period. By 2022 everything will be done and dusted and there will be no going back.
Of course there was a General Election this year that effectively rejected Theresa May's hard Brexit. If Gove is serious about giving people a meaningful say on the final deal then he will be advocating a referendum that allows us the choice of accepting what is negotiated or exiting from Brexit altogether.
